I've worn this fat suit like armor... Gucci Mama writes.

Okay for today's Guest Contributor I don't know HOW I didn't know about her before. The girl is not only a great writer, but witty to boot... she's right up the alley of what kind of blogs I like to read! After reading this post you should go check her blog out. She's quite literally... awesome.

I was so, insanely hot when I was twenty. I was lean and curvy and perky. My hair was shiny; my glasses made my look like some kind of naughty fantasy librarian. While I have always prided myself on my intellect, I was also a big, fat idiot when I was twenty. Not only did I not realize what I had (I was very good at imagining my physical flaws) but I took the beauty I did recognize for granted. I thought the attention from men, especially my (soon to be) husband wouldn't fade.

Fast forward several years to miscarriages, pregnancies, bed rest, laundry, and about forty tons of pasta and I want to travel back in time and kick my twenty year old self square in the throat for a.) not having myself dipped in bronze and b.) not taking a little better care of myself so I didn't have to work so hard now to feel like a woman again instead of some kind of dowdy housekeeper/caretaker of children who just fades into invisibility in the eyes of men, especially my husband.

Oh, he loves us. I know he does. He tells us and he shows us. He's a good father, an excellent provider, and a really great...roommate. Somewhere along the road of being married for the better part of a decade we've lost our spark. Living with him right now is like living with my best friend. We laugh together, we talk about our day, we plan for our future, we raise our children, and sometimes we bicker. But gone are the days where he sweeps me into an impromptu dance in the kitchen or steps into the shower behind me. Infertility/pregnancy loss turned sex into a procreation mission instead of an expression of love and desire and commitment. After my second successful pregnancy sex became a distant memory, something other people do.

Because I'm so good at it anyway, of course I blamed myself. First of all, it was my baby rabies that could only be cured by a second child after the first one was so difficult to produce. Then it was my broken, failure of a body that put me on bed rest first at home by week 16 of my pregnancy and then in the hospital by week 28. It's on the bed rest that I blame the weight gain. Well, that and the twice a week ordering of pizza while I was in the hospital because the cafeteria food was so horrifying. I certainly can't blame the weight gain on my baby, since she weighed all of three pounds. It was me and my stress eating.

After my little, tiny daughter was born things were quite stressful. Life with a sick little preemie does not exactly lend itself to a stress free existence. I believe I mentioned I'm a stress eater. So I fell into this cycle of feeling like shit, eating my pain, feeling worse for having done so, and then eating my pain again. It's not something I'd recommend.

My daughter slowly gained strength, my life resumed a much more normal order, and I set out on a mission to find myself again. I'm still walking the road, and from my perspective I'm doing it largely unsupported. I don't want to be twenty again, and I don't want to make radical, sweeping changes in my life (though at times the idea does hover at the edge of my mind and seem to have some merit) but I do want to be valued for more than my ability to make meals and read bedtime stories. I know my husband would say that he does value me for more than that, but it doesn't feel that way.

I want to feel like a woman again.

It's not about the weight and it shouldn't be. There is so much more to me than my appearance, and that's what he fell in love with so many years ago. So I'm left wondering what happens now? I'm getting my body back, but that scares me. It scares me that I might have just been the hot rich girl twelve years ago when we met and now that she's gone (well, her hotness anyway) there's nothing left. Where did my confidence go? Did the stretch marks and shelf ass kick it to the curb? And if so, was it really confidence in the first place or just vanity?

I've worn this fat suit like armor to protect myself and by shedding it I feel like I'm throwing myself on a double edged sword. On the one side, I want to be beautiful and desirable again. On the other side, I want to be beautiful and desirable in the eyes of my husband even when I'm overweight and I haven't worn make up in three days and my hair is in a haphazard pony tail because my children aren't interested in waiting for me to do my hair before we go to the park.

It's very difficult, at least for me, this learning to be a mother and a wife. I'm not sure why it's all up to me, yet it seems to be. Clearly I should just have had myself dipped in bronze and called it a day.

Gucci Mama also blogs at her personal blog Mama Still Wears Gucci

And she has a cause... go help her out!